I’d like to talk about conference play in the NCAA. At my company we focus on four conferences and we find a great opportunity in these conference matchups every week. Not unlike NFL football, where there’s a ton of data and trends that we use when teams play in their own division for the second time. In this article today, I’m going to tell you about some of the secrets of the trade that I’ve used that have made me and my clients over the years a lot of unit profits using these simple yet effective methods.

The key to success in any company is specialization. There are a ton of games on the board every week, and as I take a closer look at them, I find that concentrating your efforts on a finite number of teams helps you better understand the tendencies and tendencies of each team in given scenarios. Let’s take a look at some items that will help you. Schools like Nebraska, Ohio State, Michigan, Florida State and in years past Notre Dame and Penn State always have inflated lines against weak sisters in conference action. Most of the time they cover those numbers, but there are exceptions when there is an opportunity. A key for me has been to look ahead at the schedule and see who they play next week. There is parity in college football. Most teams have talent, 300-pound linemen, guys who can hit like a freight train, and wide receivers and running backs who can run runs from 4.3 to 40 yards. If a given team is not ready and prepared to play a game, they can be beaten and surely cannot cover a large number. An example would be in the first week of this season in 2000, when Nebraska put up 50 points against San Jose State and didn’t come close to covering the number. Guess who they had on the show next week? They played Notre Dame. In conference action, when you have Ohio State playing Michigan, take a hard look at who they’re playing the week before. If they’re playing a weak sister in their conference, I can bet a dime to a dollar they’re betting a big number, even on the road, and they had better not be looking ahead and not covering. Another angle is the homecoming in college football. Teams rise to the occasion, especially weaker teams playing a superior team in conference action. When this scenario occurs, he usually has a double-digit house dog, and there is value in this situation against the line.

There are revenge factors from previous years’ reunion that you need to explore, and there are also a lot of rivalries within the state. A good example of this is the game of Texas and Oklahoma each year. Both teams have been fighting in this contest, called the Red River War, for a long time. There is a great emphasis on this game in both schools. It takes on even more importance now that both teams are in the Big 12 Southern division. The underdog in this series prior to this year’s game was 10-5 ATS in the last 15. Until Bob Stoops took over this OU team, the underdog was 9-2 ATS. OU has owned Mac Brown and Texas, but as the gap narrows, the gap widens, as OU was the 4 1/2 favorite in 2004 and won by more than 40 points. This game gets circled every year on my docket because punters make it a tight line but OU is dominating the series the last 4 years and I am finding opportunities with this series. Back in 2005, when Texas was on its way to winning a national title, REVENGE was evident, and they put up HUGE numbers in this game, and covered with ease, thus following trends and knowing that the revenge factors paid HUGE dividends. My game of the year 3 of the last 4 years have come out of this game and I’ve cashed them all! That’s 12 Units of 1 conference game winners in 3 years of downloading into it.

When you’re handicapping professionally like me, or doing it on your own, sometimes you can over-analyze games and get to a point where you can’t see the forest because of all the trees. I’m more of a situational analysis handicap guy and sometimes you find opportunities against the spread by looking at the simple things that don’t take a rocket scientist to figure out. Use these simple techniques for your college football handicap and you’ll be units ahead at the end of the season.

Tony George is the owner of Midwest Sports Consultants in Lincoln, NE. In business since 1992, Midwest is known as a no-nonsense, highly ethical organization with over 35 Top Ten awards from respected monitoring services since 1996. Tony’s works can be found here every day on this site you’re viewing.